☆ Palo Alto Mayor: RM4 crashed because it upheld the myth that the Bay Area can meet an impossible housing needs assessment (1/3)
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According to former Palo Alto mayor Lydia Kou, it’s not only arrogance and sloppy math that undid RM4, the $20 billion housing bond that got unceremoniously yanked off the November ballot at the eleventh hour. In Part 1 of this Opp Now exclusive, Kou argues that the measure’s failure can be traced back to an impossible housing needs assessment figure, which was pushed through with little to no public input.
Opportunity Now: Why do you think BAHFA pulled the $20 billion housing bond, known as RM4, off the November ballot?
Lydia Kou: Most likely, it was due to the math error on the ballot label, which described the yearly debt service as $670 million, when it really was about $911 million. Thank goodness for the grassroots group 20 Billion Reasons, which discovered the falsehoods in the ballot language, and BAHFA's poor math abilities.
This shows that the process and analysis was sloppy work, and you have to ask: are we supposed to trust these people to manage the bond money?
ON: Yikes. Why do you think BAHFA underestimated the opposition?
LK: Arrogance, and banking on Proposition 5 on the November ballot, which would reduce the threshold for passage from two-thirds to 55% voter approval.
BAHFA had a lot of legislators behind them who were supported by lobbyists from special interest groups like the Bay Area Council, Wall St, and big tech corporations.
The idea for a bond came out of the CASA compact, which itself was a response to a weaponized RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Assessment). I've opposed the CASA compact because it sets cities and counties up for failure. The devil’s in the details. And we don’t know enough of the details because it's usually buried in hundreds and hundreds of pages and is convolutedly written.
When it came to BAHFA’s efforts to try to push through a massive housing bond, I saw the writing on the wall. It's fixed, and RM4 supporters did not care about creating generational debt or the unintended consequences.
ON: It sounds like they didn’t want to take input from other voices. Is that a fair assessment?
LK: The regional agencies have a one-track way of thinking; they don't look at the externalities, the economy's up and down volatilities, the international demand, cost of goods, cost of labor, cost of land differences—the economic perspective.
They don’t look at people, or at population numbers. They don’t take changing situations into account. And frankly, most of the "appointed" committee members do not ask enough questions, nor do they reach out to community experts to hear the pros and cons, and determine what is ideology and what is reality.
For example, when the COVID pandemic hit, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) was working on the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). They did not want to make an adjustment when the population was starting to decrease even more. They just tried to push forward without considering real-life facts on the ground.
ON: Was the regional government open to hearing from people who disagreed with their housing need assessment?
LK: Many wrote letters and attended virtual meetings to tell them that the population has dropped, and that should warrant consideration. They completely shut us down and refused to listen.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and its many committees, sub-committees, and advisory panels are made up of "appointed" commissioners and members who are locally elected officials. MTC's authority has been weaponized by state legislation, and to hell with transparency and accountability to the people.
ON: And you’re saying RHNA and RM4 are affected by the same kind of one-sided mindset?
LK: The truth is, the death of RM4 was really RHNA, and, really, Scott Wiener’s SB828 before that, which ordered RHNA’s bogus math.
RHNA Cycle 6 mandates the Bay Area to build over 220,000 new affordable housing units. Everybody knows that’s impossible without money, and everybody knows the money isn’t there.
But Sacramento was politically committed to that number, so they needed a money story, so BAHFA and RM4 were formed to supply that story. The failure of RM4 is simply where the RHNA numbers hit reality.
So, the root cause isn’t public stinginess—it’s the state legislature’s intentional math-denial on RHNA. They should all be ashamed of themselves.
ON: Does the failure of RM4 mean the energy is changing, and that people are going to push back against top-down control from Sacramento?
LK: I think there are more and more people who are frustrated and feel the need to step up. We may lose, we may win; either way, it will encourage other people to step up and not let the insanity continue.
If you want a social safety net, if you want to fix homelessness, it’s going to take money. But it’s also going to take competence and an understanding of reality. The legislature bungled it from day one.
Let's bring common sense back to Sacramento, so politicians represent people, not corporations or their own self-interests.
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